Papuan Parliament. Photo by Tre Lan
The Centre for Democratic Institutions (CDI) at ANU has been awarded $1 million from the Federal Government for a program to help women in Papua New Guinea gain skills in democratic politics. Announced this week by Prime Minister Julia Gillard, the funding will go towards a Women Candidates Training Strategy, developed in partnership with the PNG Office for the Development of Women (ODW) and the UN Development Program (UNDP). CDI Director Stephen Sherlock said PNG Prime Minister Peter O'Neill visited the University on Wednesday. "Mr O'Neill recently introduced legislation to provide for 22 reserved seats for women in parliament," he said. "Our aim is to assist the women who want to contest these new reserved seats, as well as those standing in the existing seats open to both women and men. "The program will help encourage women to participate in politics in the Pacific nation, where involvement has been particularly low." Sherlock said that a number of the activities in the initiative have already been completed, including a 'training the trainers' workshop for facilitators from local civil society organisations. "The strategy, which was developed by ODW with assistance from CDI and UNDP's Women in Leadership Project, is a home-grown response to the poor political representation of women in PNG," he said.
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